Your beauty, when you depart, leaves me like a song

Attention! Some of this material is not in the public domain.

It is illegal to copy and distribute our copyright-protected material without permission. It is also illegal to reprint copyright texts or translations without the name of the author or translator.

To inquire about permissions and rates, contact Emily Ezust at licenses@email.lieder.example.net

If you wish to reprint translations, please make sure you include the names of the translators in your email. They are below each translation.

Note: You must use the copyright symbol © when you reprint copyright-protected material.

by Henri Cazalis (1840 - 1909), as Jean Lahor

Translation © by Grant Hicks

Ta beauté, quand tu pars, me laisse...

Language: French (Français)

Our translations: DUT ENG

Choose for Diff

Ta beauté, quand tu pars, me laisse comme un chant,
Dont la tendre douceur tout entier me pénètre ;
Et mon âme s'emplit de soupirs l'étouffant,
Et ce chant merveilleux fait trembler tout mon être.

About the headline (FAQ)

Confirmed with Jean Lahor, Les Quatrains d'Al-Ghazali, Paris, Alphonse Lemerre, 1896, page 30.

Note: This is not a translation. Al-Ghazali left no known poetry; these quatrains were written by Jean Lahor (pseudonym of Henri Cazalis), who imagined himself into Al-Ghazali's life and thought, adopting the quatrain form because it was current in Omar Khayyam's era.

Text Authorship:

by Henri Cazalis (1840 - 1909), as Jean Lahor, no title, appears in En Orient, in 1. Les Quatrains d'Al-Ghazali, in 1. Les amours, in 1. L'Amour de la Femme, no. 37 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

[ None yet in the database ]

The text above (or a part of it) is used in the following settings:

by Blair Fairchild (1877 - 1933), "Oh ! Mon amour", op. 40 no. 2, published 1915 [ high voice and piano ], from Quatrains d'Al-Ghazali, no. 2, London, Augener
Score: IMSLP [external link]
- View the full text. [sung text checked 1 time]
by Ernest Moret (1871 - 1949), "Le chant merveilleux de ta beauté", published 1919 [ high voice and piano ], from Sous le ciel de l'Islam, no. 4, Paris, Éd. Heugel
- View the full text. [sung text checked 1 time]

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

DUT Dutch (Nederlands) (Joost van der Linden) , copyright © 2023, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
ENG English (Grant Hicks) , copyright © 2026, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2023-05-03
Line count: 4
Word count: 34

Your beauty, when you depart, leaves me...

Language: English after the French (Français)

Choose for Diff

Your beauty, when you depart, leaves me like a song
Whose tender sweetness penetrates me through;
And my soul is filled with suffocating sighs,
And that wonderful song makes my whole being tremble.

About the headline (FAQ)

Text Authorship:

Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2026 by Grant Hicks, (re)printed on this website with kind permission. To reprint and distribute this author's work for concert programs, CD booklets, etc., you may ask the copyright-holder(s) directly or ask us; we are authorized to grant permission on their behalf. Please provide the translator's name when contacting us.
Contact: licenses@email.lieder.example.net

Based on:

a text in French (Français) by Henri Cazalis (1840 - 1909), as Jean Lahor, no title, appears in En Orient, in 1. Les Quatrains d'Al-Ghazali, in 1. Les amours, in 1. L'Amour de la Femme, no. 37
- Go to the text page.

This text was added to the website: 2026-08-26
Line count: 4
Word count: 33